Personal electronic devices (PEDs) become increasingly widespread. Usually those PEDs get carried around along with the user wherever he travels, including on board of aircraft. Considering the manifold communication interfaces which such PEDs comprise it is desirable to provide passengers on board an aircraft with access to the different networks of the aircraft, for example a wireless local area network (WLAN).
PEDs often incorporate near field communication (NFC) circuitry comprising NFC chips and corresponding antennas. NFC is a wireless technology allowing two NFC-enabled devices to wirelessly communicate over a short distance of several centimeters. NFC is standardized internationally within NFC Forum specifications and defined in, for example, ISO/IEC 18092, ISO/IEC 18000-3, ISO/IEC 21481, ECMA-340, ISO 14443, and the like. A main application area for NFC technology is contactless, short-range communications on the basis of radio frequency identification (RFID) standards. NFC utilizes electromagnetic field induction that enables communication between PEDs such as laptops, mobile phones, smartphones, tablet PCs and the like.
US 2010/0106870 A1 discloses an aircraft communication system including an aircraft terminal connected to at least one input/output unit. The system includes a portable resource connected to the aircraft terminal via a network connection. The portable resource is equipped with a virtual network server which enables the portable resource to run a virtual network client on the aircraft terminal.